5 ms·

Roadrunner Blocked by U.S. Border Wall Wins Best Bird Photo of 2021

97 points by fnord77 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
caseyavila 5y ago
My first thought was, "why does everything have to be so politicized." I then thought about the picture from the birds perspective and realized it tells a story about much more than politics.
eric4smith 5y ago
Extremely beautiful photo! But am I the only one that thinks this was also chosen for a political statement?
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
  That is 100% why this was chosen.
- haihaibye 5y ago
  I think that's a fair assumption when the winning bird photo is ~0.25% bird (by pixels)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- perl4ever 5y ago
  Roadrunners can fly, can't they? "flying is limited to gliding from a nest or perch to the ground, or between perches" "Male roadrunners perch atop fence posts and rocks" https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Greater_Roadrunner/lifehistory https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Greater_Roadrunner/lifeh...
  - jws 5y ago
    Roadrunners lack a keel on their breastbone and have relatively small pectoral muscles. They can fly a little, but my 4 minutes of internet research say it is unlikely that bird can fly over that wall.
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      I don't claim to have done more than 4 minutes of research myself, but supporting a negative proposition is a lot harder than finding evidence for the existence of something.
  - atatatat 5y ago
    That was the political message — right?
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      The political message is bound to be either that the border wall is an insurmountable barrier with devastating consequences, or that it's trivial to get past and a complete useless waste of money. It's logically possible for it to be both at once, depending on context but it's an interestingly contradictory aesthetic.
- annexrichmond 5y ago
  Maybe, but I wouldn’t be able to say for certain what that statement is. I think anyone would enjoy this photo no matter their political stripes
- epse 5y ago
  I assume in bird photography circles, they would be more concerned with the ecological impact (which is in a way also political)
- aw1621107 5y ago
  > But am I the only one that thinks this was also chosen for a political statement? For what it's worth, the competition site says [0]: > Typically, an awarded photo will: > Be properly in focus, > show good use of exposure and lighting, > display technical excellence in its execution, > and capture a unique moment, behaviour, or story. The last criteria seems like it could answer your question. The announcement page also has this blurb [1]: > The image tells an important story of habitat fragmentation, and how structures such as the border wall can prevent wildlife from migrating and moving into other areas. The wall dominates the image, with the roadrunner seemingly powerless and small in the frame. [0]: https://www.birdpoty.com/news/judging-bird-poty-how-we-decide-the-winners https://www.birdpoty.com/news/judging-bird-poty-how-we-decid... [1]: https://www.birdpoty.com/2021-winners https://www.birdpoty.com/2021-winners
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  The description for the photo on the organization's web site (linked in the Petapixel article) reads, > The image tells an important story of habitat fragmentation, and how structures such as the border wall can prevent wildlife from migrating and moving into other areas. The wall dominates the image, with the roadrunner seemingly powerless and small in the frame. So they're not really being coy about this being a statement. The Petapixel article also has longer quotes from the artist about how disruptive he feels the border wall is for wildlife. I don't think it's a statement about immigration politics, per se, as much as a statement about unintended consequences of the way our actions affect the environment.
  - Splognosticus 5y ago
    Yeah, the statement is literally just "the exact specific thing we said this project would cause happened." Lamentably the people listening already knew that, and the people who need to hear it won't listen. Honestly the wall doesn't even need to be political to be a bad idea. We could stipulate that every single reason given for needing to build it is true and it'd still only keep out roadrunners. :\
- Nicksil 5y ago
  >But am I the only one that thinks this was also chosen for a political statement? A lot of notable and iconic photographs are political.
- Exmoor 5y ago
  As someone who pays a decent amount of attention of wildlife photography, and this contest, amazingly detailed photos of birds end up being a dime a dozen in contests like these. What really gets you noticed is something that tells a story beyond "I'm a bird." Not necessarily political, but something that really tells a story in one single frame.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  If anybody cared about the wildlife, the wall could have had holes big enough for roadrunners to get through. The jaguars and bears would still be SOL. Unless we took it down. We got along without for a damn long time, and the reasons to put it up in the first place always turned out to be entirely made up and contrary to well-established fact. Is observation of stupidly, massively overpriced construction that has, objectively, no desirable result, but is massively disruptive for wildlife, political? Only through an implicitly political lens.
- RappingBoomer 5y ago
  not exactly strange that the media loves immigration and hates anti-immigrationist people...after all, the media is funded by big corporations that hire Labor...It always was Capital vs Labor...always...
akerr 5y ago
Meep meep!
tofukid 5y ago
“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respected Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges…” — President George Washington “Freedom of emigration is due to the general interests of humanity. The course of emigrations being always, from places where living is more difficult, to places where it is less difficult, the happiness of the emigrant is promoted by the change: and as a more numerous progeny is another effect of the same cause, human life is at once made a greater blessing, and more individuals are created to partake of it.” — James Madison
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
  Lovely sentiment but it doesn’t translate to actual immigration policy. And, chances are, these two presidents were probably talking about white immigrants, given the racism and slavery of the time. Are you familiar with James Madison’s policies with Native Americans? He privately thought they couldn’t be civilized and wanted white immigrants to eventually mix with and displace them into irrelevance.
  - tofukid 5y ago
    It translates to immigration policy. Plenty of people support freedom of immigration (note, immigration is not naturalization), a policy of letting people freely come to the US to live and work (as opposed to quotas, work permits, work requirements, residency restrictions, etc.).
    - anamax 5y ago
      The "immigration not naturalization" people fall into two camps: [1] People who want cheap low-skilled labor but don't want that "labor" to have any political power. [2] People who are lying about the "not naturalization" part. I suppose that there are also folks who don't realize which group they're in.
  - Clewza313 5y ago
    For better or worse, that's exactly what happened, so Madison's policy appears to have been quite effective.
Rebelgecko 5y ago
Is the "longhorn sheep" an actual animal, or is this some sort of mistranslation of bighorn sheep from US to UK English?
hulitu 5y ago
The Berlin wall looked pale in comparison. What i'm missing are the machine gun towers ? Were they not quoted in the initial offering ?
randycupertino 5y ago
The photoshop battles thread on this photo on reddit was pretty fun: https://www.reddit.com/r/photoshopbattles/comments/phrclh/psbattle_roadrunner_in_front_of_the_border_wall/ https://www.reddit.com/r/photoshopbattles/comments/phrclh/ps... Though personally I was holding out for seeing the roadrunner amongst some orcs on ladders climbing up helm's deep.
HelixEndeavor 5y ago
Guess that Wile E Coyote had the last laugh...

97 points by fnord77 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

My first thought was, "why does everything have to be so politicized." I then thought about the picture from the birds perspective and realized it tells a story about much more than politics.

eric4smith 5y ago

Extremely beautiful photo! But am I the only one that thinks this was also chosen for a political statement?

BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
That is 100% why this was chosen.
haihaibye 5y ago
I think that's a fair assumption when the winning bird photo is ~0.25% bird (by pixels)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
perl4ever 5y ago
Roadrunners can fly, can't they? "flying is limited to gliding from a nest or perch to the ground, or between perches" "Male roadrunners perch atop fence posts and rocks" https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Greater_Roadrunner/lifehistory https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Greater_Roadrunner/lifeh...
- jws 5y ago
  Roadrunners lack a keel on their breastbone and have relatively small pectoral muscles. They can fly a little, but my 4 minutes of internet research say it is unlikely that bird can fly over that wall.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    I don't claim to have done more than 4 minutes of research myself, but supporting a negative proposition is a lot harder than finding evidence for the existence of something.
- atatatat 5y ago
  That was the political message — right?
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    The political message is bound to be either that the border wall is an insurmountable barrier with devastating consequences, or that it's trivial to get past and a complete useless waste of money. It's logically possible for it to be both at once, depending on context but it's an interestingly contradictory aesthetic.
annexrichmond 5y ago
Maybe, but I wouldn’t be able to say for certain what that statement is. I think anyone would enjoy this photo no matter their political stripes
epse 5y ago
I assume in bird photography circles, they would be more concerned with the ecological impact (which is in a way also political)
aw1621107 5y ago
> But am I the only one that thinks this was also chosen for a political statement? For what it's worth, the competition site says [0]: > Typically, an awarded photo will: > Be properly in focus, > show good use of exposure and lighting, > display technical excellence in its execution, > and capture a unique moment, behaviour, or story. The last criteria seems like it could answer your question. The announcement page also has this blurb [1]: > The image tells an important story of habitat fragmentation, and how structures such as the border wall can prevent wildlife from migrating and moving into other areas. The wall dominates the image, with the roadrunner seemingly powerless and small in the frame. [0]: https://www.birdpoty.com/news/judging-bird-poty-how-we-decide-the-winners https://www.birdpoty.com/news/judging-bird-poty-how-we-decid... [1]: https://www.birdpoty.com/2021-winners https://www.birdpoty.com/2021-winners
chipotle_coyote 5y ago
The description for the photo on the organization's web site (linked in the Petapixel article) reads, > The image tells an important story of habitat fragmentation, and how structures such as the border wall can prevent wildlife from migrating and moving into other areas. The wall dominates the image, with the roadrunner seemingly powerless and small in the frame. So they're not really being coy about this being a statement. The Petapixel article also has longer quotes from the artist about how disruptive he feels the border wall is for wildlife. I don't think it's a statement about immigration politics, per se, as much as a statement about unintended consequences of the way our actions affect the environment.
- Splognosticus 5y ago
  Yeah, the statement is literally just "the exact specific thing we said this project would cause happened." Lamentably the people listening already knew that, and the people who need to hear it won't listen. Honestly the wall doesn't even need to be political to be a bad idea. We could stipulate that every single reason given for needing to build it is true and it'd still only keep out roadrunners. :\
Nicksil 5y ago
>But am I the only one that thinks this was also chosen for a political statement? A lot of notable and iconic photographs are political.
Exmoor 5y ago
As someone who pays a decent amount of attention of wildlife photography, and this contest, amazingly detailed photos of birds end up being a dime a dozen in contests like these. What really gets you noticed is something that tells a story beyond "I'm a bird." Not necessarily political, but something that really tells a story in one single frame.
ncmncm 5y ago
If anybody cared about the wildlife, the wall could have had holes big enough for roadrunners to get through. The jaguars and bears would still be SOL. Unless we took it down. We got along without for a damn long time, and the reasons to put it up in the first place always turned out to be entirely made up and contrary to well-established fact. Is observation of stupidly, massively overpriced construction that has, objectively, no desirable result, but is massively disruptive for wildlife, political? Only through an implicitly political lens.
RappingBoomer 5y ago
not exactly strange that the media loves immigration and hates anti-immigrationist people...after all, the media is funded by big corporations that hire Labor...It always was Capital vs Labor...always...

akerr 5y ago

Meep meep!

tofukid 5y ago

“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respected Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges…” — President George Washington “Freedom of emigration is due to the general interests of humanity. The course of emigrations being always, from places where living is more difficult, to places where it is less difficult, the happiness of the emigrant is promoted by the change: and as a more numerous progeny is another effect of the same cause, human life is at once made a greater blessing, and more individuals are created to partake of it.” — James Madison

BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
Lovely sentiment but it doesn’t translate to actual immigration policy. And, chances are, these two presidents were probably talking about white immigrants, given the racism and slavery of the time. Are you familiar with James Madison’s policies with Native Americans? He privately thought they couldn’t be civilized and wanted white immigrants to eventually mix with and displace them into irrelevance.
- tofukid 5y ago
  It translates to immigration policy. Plenty of people support freedom of immigration (note, immigration is not naturalization), a policy of letting people freely come to the US to live and work (as opposed to quotas, work permits, work requirements, residency restrictions, etc.).
  - anamax 5y ago
    The "immigration not naturalization" people fall into two camps: [1] People who want cheap low-skilled labor but don't want that "labor" to have any political power. [2] People who are lying about the "not naturalization" part. I suppose that there are also folks who don't realize which group they're in.
- Clewza313 5y ago
  For better or worse, that's exactly what happened, so Madison's policy appears to have been quite effective.

Rebelgecko 5y ago

Is the "longhorn sheep" an actual animal, or is this some sort of mistranslation of bighorn sheep from US to UK English?

hulitu 5y ago

The Berlin wall looked pale in comparison. What i'm missing are the machine gun towers ? Were they not quoted in the initial offering ?

randycupertino 5y ago

The photoshop battles thread on this photo on reddit was pretty fun: https://www.reddit.com/r/photoshopbattles/comments/phrclh/psbattle_roadrunner_in_front_of_the_border_wall/ https://www.reddit.com/r/photoshopbattles/comments/phrclh/ps... Though personally I was holding out for seeing the roadrunner amongst some orcs on ladders climbing up helm's deep.

HelixEndeavor 5y ago

Guess that Wile E Coyote had the last laugh...